Feds’ social-finance pledge turns Canada from ‘laggard’ to leader, experts say
Posted November 23, 2018 1:11 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA — A Canadian attempt to help charities and non-profits find new ways to finance social services is set to be one of the largest such efforts in the world.
A government-struck panel over the summer recommended the Liberals provide up to $500 million in financing for groups that provide services such as housing the homeless or skills training for hard-to-employ individuals.
The government’s economic update this week went beyond that, promising $755 million over 10 years.
Internal government documents from this fall note that similar funds overseas, scaled to Canada’s population and economy, would have about $400 million in government seed money.
Social finance sees charities and non-profits partner with private investors to test new ways of delivering social services. The idea is that public dollars can bring in or increase private involvement in charity projects, or pay for performance if the experiments succeed.
People who work in the nascent sector domestically say a decade of federal funding should lead to a point where public cash will no longer be needed because the system will sustain itself.
The Canadian Press
